Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1887-04-14
STANFORD'S MAIL.
Character Of the Innumerable Missivcs
Received by the Benevolent Senator.


Character of the Innumerable Missivcs
Received by the Benevolent Senator.
Senator Leland Stanford, who is
frequent visitor to New York, employs
a sharp-witted ex-journalist in Wash
ington as his private secretary to sift
out of his daily mail the letters of cranks,
dead-beats and beggars, and keeps three
or four shorthand writers busily en-
gagged in preparing the answers to those
that require attention. The mass of let
tiers that are poured in upon the Senator
from the post-oflice, morning and even
ing, is so great that it would be appal-
ling to man less methodical in his
habits or less able to employ competent
assistance. They come from all sorts
and conditions of people, but those who
have something to sell are among the
most persistent Of the Senator's cor.
respondents.
II believe the Senator would own
one-half of the land in the country if he
bought all that was offered" said his
private secretary. II don't believe
there are many land-poor men left be-
tween the two oceans whom we havo
not heard from. And we are always
assured that a big fortune is impatiently
waiting for the Senator to pick up. But
it is not land alone that Mr.. Standford's
correspondents offer to sell him. Every
person who has "a rare bargain in any
thing and who has bored his friends
and pestered every body else whom he
could get at and failed to dispose Of it,
unsuccessful spectators of every sort,
projectors of new railroads who have
got to the ends of their ropes but have
not got their lines completed to any
where, organizers of financial, COM
mercial and manufacturing enterprises,
to say nothing of the numberless solicit
tors for aid for all sorts of educational,
benevolent and religious institutions
that are in financial straits, all write N
him.
And these letters do not all come from
American correspondents. The fame
of Senator Stanford's MILLIONS and of
his more than prinoely generosity has
gone beyond the sea, and brings him
every week great packages of letters
bearing foreign postmarks. A curious
one received few days ago was dated
at st. Petersburg, written in bad French
and signed by man who said that he
was Russian Count, who offered to
sell great slice of the Cars empire.
have forgotten how many millions of
acres he said there were. The beauties
of this vast domain, its untold agri-
cultural and mineral resources and the
delights of its salubrious climate, were
described by master hand. Inclosed
with the letter was formidable-look-
ing official certificate, covered all over
with seals and attestations, setting forth
that the writer had IA right to sell the
territory he offered, and the names of
high Russian officials and representa-
lives of foreign governments in st.
Petersburg were given, to whom Sem
ator Stanford was referred and invited
10 write or telegraph in regard to the
Counts responsibility. The Senator
will not probably make the purchase
this year.
Perhaps one-halfth the letters that come
in Senator Stanford's mail are from
women, and study of this part of his
mail reveals some curious phases of
human nature and discloses some
strange workings of the human mind.
1t is interesting to note how nine out of
ten of these female correspondents begin
their communications with the same
stereotype sentences or phrases: 81
know that you will consider it pre-
sumptuous in me to write to yon." II
the writer is married woman she
always declares that she "writes this
letter without the knowledge of her
husband"
A popularity of the women's letters
is that they go all around Robin Hood
barn before they come to the thing they
want to say. A woman who wanted
money enough to buy new piano, in
stead of saying so right out, prefaced
her request with narrative of her fam
lily history, history of the piano sh'
had, the usage it had been subjected to
its getting out of tune recently, hel
efforts to restore it and the cost. Thi;
was followed by a profusion of excuses
for addressing u letter to the Senator
re-recital OF her trials and struggles
and, finally, after wading through pagc
of irrelevant matter, the request for tn,
money was found by the reader in thu
last two or three lines.-Z. L. While
IN PHILADELPHIA Press.